We tend to think of ourselves as a finished product, but in fact we never stop evolving and adapting. In our unbelievably intricate, amazing, and fabulous bodies is an innocuous, rarely regarded process that could use an overhaul; it is the maintenance of muscle tone.

In a nutshell, this is how the vicious cycle of hypertonus develops:  the cerebellum is required to maintain a pre-set level of ongoing contraction of a small number of skeletal muscle fibers at all times (muscle tone). Although skeletal muscle is contracted voluntarily, this aspect of skeletal muscle contraction is automatic – we don’t have to think about it in order to contract it. (Cardiac and smooth muscle are contracted involuntarily but those processes are not coordinated by the cerebellum.)

The cerebellum constantly receives information from the muscle spindle as to the amount of fibers being contracted in each skeletal muscle; it then compares this amount with its pre-programmed requirement, and makes adjustments accordingly, either relaxing or contracting more fibers in the muscle. 

But when the spindle cell becomes inundated with lactic acid, a by-product of the metabolism which is caustic enough to burn a living cell when poured onto it in a test tube, the toxic lactic acid distorts and sickens the flower-spray feedback nerves to the cerebellum, weakening their signal. The cerebellum interprets the weak signal to mean the skeletal muscle (upon which the spindle is reporting) is relaxing; that there aren’t enough fibers contracting in that particular muscle to maintain a proper amount of muscle tone (pre-set requirement). So it orders up more contraction through the motor nerves.

More fibers contracting results in less circulation in the muscle (round skeletal muscles squeeze off their own veins during contraction) and more lactic acid produced and trapped in the spindle, which further weakens the signal from the feedback nerves.

The cerebellum does not remember that just seconds ago it tightened that very muscle because it is an “in-the-now” brain. As it reacts to each moment, ordering up more contraction, a vicious, unending cycle of self-sustaining spasm begins that, over time, intensifies and grows larger, and is permanent unless treated.

That’s where we come in: NeuroSoma® repairs, or resets, the flowerspray nerve endings through precise stimulation to the nerve beds, thereby reinstating feedback loops to the cerebellum. The brain reads the new information and reacts accordingly by relaxing the muscles.